Converge are back, baby. The Massachusetts metalcore greats have been unusually quiet since the release of their ripping 2012 album, All We Love We Leave Behind, with a live DVD/album standing as their only release in the interim. The excitement started a few weeks ago with the release of a new, two-track 7” record, and it only gets better today with an official album announcement and accompanying single.
The band’s ninth album, The Dusk in Us, is set to arrive on November 3. Along with the title track from their recent 7”, “I Can Tell You About Pain,” the tracklist contains song titles as depressing and bleak as “A Single Tear,” “Murk & Marrow,” and “Under Duress,” the last of which has been shared on YouTube and Soundcloud today.
It doesn’t take long for guitarist Kurt Ballou, bassist Nate Newton, and drummer Ben Koller to fall into the complex sort of lockstep that’s become their calling card, again showing that they’re pound-for-pound the strongest three-piece in punk. For anyone other than fearless frontman Jacob Bannon, keeping up with such a trio would be nearly impossible, but Bannon, who’s been doing this since the late ‘80s, is no mere mortal. His delivery’s only gotten more enthralling, and his lyrics only more poignant and biting. He calls “Under Duress” “my emotional reaction to the complex world in which we live,” and that barely-veiled Trumpocalypse Now sentiment is echoed in the chilling-but-empowered lyrics:
Don’t need a helmet if I have my heart
Don’t need your war to find peace
I don’t need to learn to live in compromise
I will never kneel and kiss your ring
Thank god these guys are back. Pre-order The Dusk in Us ahead of its November release date on Deathwish Records’ webstore.
